Promising multi-console emulator comes with its share of missed opportunities.

Game console emulators have typically concerned themselves with either speed and compatibility, or accuracy. Regardless of what they prioritize, user interfaces are not their strong suit, and most of them haven’t evolved beyond a basic settings panel and a file picker that wouldn’t look out of place in Windows 95. That doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions, particularly for Mac users: last year we took a look at Boxer, which combines classic MS-DOS game emulation with a spiffy and easy-to-use UI. This year, gamers got an early Christmas present in the form of the long-awaited 1.0 release of OpenEmu.

OpenEmu won’t be new to emulation enthusiasts—the OS X-only software has been in development for several years, and gamers have been welcome to download and compile its work-in-progress source code for quite some time. This week’s release marks the first time that a ready-for-prime-time binary version has been available for download, so we’re taking it for a spin using some homebrew games (available free of cost from the OpenEmu site) and a few game backups, which you can grab from your own cartridges with a gadget like the Retrode.

Meet OpenEmu

Enlarge/ Installing "cores" enables OpenEmu to support more systems. More cores will be made available as development continues.

Andrew Cunningham

OpenEmu is a game console emulator, but it's perhaps more accurately described as a frontend for a whole bunch of different emulators. When you install and run the application, you'll also need to download the "cores" of a number of different open-source emulation projects in order to actually play games.

The 1.0 release of OpenEmu offers up 13 cores that support a total of 12 systems (there are several duplicates, which should ensure that emulation enthusiasts can get a good experience no matter what they're currently using). The following systems are supported out of the box as of this release and are almost universally Nintendo or Sega systems (with a couple of exceptions): NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Virtual Boy, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Sega's 32X, the TurboGrafx-16, and the NeoGeo Pocket Color.

OpenEmu's modular nature means that more cores can easily be added as development continues—the project's wishlist indicates that support for several of Atari's consoles, MAME, and newer consoles like the Nintendo 64 and original PlayStation are all on the docket. The tendency of emulation projects to be free and open source works in OpenEmu's favor here. If your favorite classic console isn't supported yet, chances are it will be eventually, as long as there's a mature, open-source OS X emulator around already.

Setup and UI

Enlarge/ OpenEmu fits right in with other OS X apps and takes more than a little inspiration from first-party efforts like iPhoto and iTunes.

Andrew Cunningham

OpenEmu requires OS X 10.7 or higher, which means it should run on any Intel Mac but the very earliest 32-bit models. As newer emulators are added, you may need to worry a little more about your CPU and GPU specs, but the age of the currently supported consoles means that you won't need to sweat the system requirements most of the time.

After going through the brief first-time setup process and downloading the cores you want, the first thing you'll want to do is get some games installed. The wizard will offer to scan your system for ROMs, but we'll be adding some manually just to see how it works.

OpenEmu is pretty iTunes-like in operation—just drag your ROM files to the window and drop them, and, with the default settings enabled, the app will create copies of them in your game library folder (at ~/Library/Application Support/OpenEmu/Game Library/roms by default), organize them by system, and automatically download box art for the game (if OpenEmu can't find your box art, you can add your own manually later if you'd like). Most of these defaults can be changed if, for example, you've already got your games organized the way you like them or if you don't care about box art.

Many commercial games will be identified automatically by OpenEmu, and the emulator will automatically download and display appropriate box art for each of them.

Andrew Cunningham

A Cover Flow display mode is also available.

Andrew Cunningham

If you don't care for thumbnails, there's also a good old list mode complete with save and play counts.

Andrew Cunningham

The homebrew games we downloaded from the OpenEmu site and imported include no box art, but you can import your own if you'd like.

Andrew Cunningham

By default, your games will be organized by system, but new "playlists" of ROMs can be added under the Collections section that can combine games from different systems.

After pulling some games in and organizing them to your liking, you'll want to configure a gamepad (the emulators will all work with a keyboard, but console games are all best suited to console controllers). Any USB/bluetooth gamepad should work with OpenEmu once you've mapped the buttons, including controllers for modern consoles like the Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, and PS4. OpenEmu includes a built-in "Add a Wiimote" function that makes pairing a Wii Remote to your Mac just as easy as pairing it to your Wii. We'll be using a Wii Remote with the Classic Controller Pro attached.

There's high-resolution art for every controller and portable system that OpenEmu supports. We were easily able to pair a Wii Remote with our Mac to use with the emulator.

Andrew Cunningham

OpenEmu will highlight each button as you map it so that you don't get mixed up.

Andrew Cunningham

You can map "Special Keys" for operations like save state loading, saving, and fast forwarding.

Andrew Cunningham

OpenEmu's controller configuration interface is both snazzy-looking and functional, and it gives you a nice, high-resolution visual representation of the controller you're configuring. As you map your buttons, OpenEmu highlights each button on the controller to make it easier to match your button configuration to the one on the original controller. The wood texture (and OpenEmu's liberal use of glassy, reflective effects) is a little cheesy, though to be fair to the developers, these sorts of things matched most other OS X and iOS apps up until the Great Skeumorphic Purge of 2013.

You've got your cores. You've imported your ROMs. You've configured a controller or two. Let's actually sit down and play some games now.

Playing the games

Enlarge/ ToeJam and Earl for the Sega Genesis. The control overlay at the bottom of the screen will fade out and reappear based on your mouse activity.

Andrew Cunningham

Modern emulators come with all kinds of display and audio options, but OpenEmu cuts this down to just a few display filters for simplicity's sake. The default presents the game's original graphics pretty much unaltered, and the rest of the filters are designed to either smooth over pixelated graphics' rough edges or give the clean and clear graphics some of the rough visual artifacts they would have had on an older CRT TV or monitor.

Once you open a game up, the filters can be adjusted on-the-fly using the small overlay that appears when you move your mouse. You can save and load states, pause and reset emulation, adjust your volume, and kick your game into full-screen mode from this overlay as well (OpenEmu uses OS X's native Full Screen Mode, a feature first introduced in 10.7). One universal setting for your graphics filter is mostly a good thing, but it would be nice to be able to set the default filter on a per-console basis—if you like smoother graphics for SNES and Genesis games but blockier, more pixelated graphics for NES and Game Boy games, for example.

A selection of OpenEmu's graphical filters. The default "nearest neighbor" setting doesn't alter the graphics. Enlarge the image to get the full effect.

Andrew Cunningham

The 2xBR filter makes things a little smoother. For many games, I found this one to offer the best combination of smoothness and old-school blockiness.

Andrew Cunningham

If you want things even smoother, there's always the 4xBR filter.

The NTSC filter emulates a fuzzy old TV.

Andrew Cunningham

The CRT filter goes even further and bends the image like an old monitor might. There are other filter options, but you get the idea.

Andrew Cunningham

OpenEmu's actual game emulation is fairly unremarkable. The SNES, Genesis, and homebrew games we tried all looked and played as they should, complete with the odd graphical artifacts and sprite flickering they would have on the original consoles. Things ran smoothly on my 2012 iMac, though some older Macs may suffer from some slowdown depending on your console, the core you're using (bsnes can be notoriously punishing on a CPU), or the graphical filters you've enabled. There are a couple of nice touches—by default, your game will pause automatically if the focus switches to another window, and games you've closed will offer to resume from where you left off, much like a DVD or Blu-ray Disc you watched half of will offer to resume when you re-insert it. They're nice little common-sense touches that drive home OpenEmu's attention to detail.

Further Reading

At this point, OpenEmu's biggest weak point (aside from relatively limited out-of-the-box console support) is that it's actually not great at getting these games up where they belong—on your television. Its interface feels right at home in OS X, and it's much more consistent and attractive than any of the individual emulators that OpenEmu aggregates. But there's no equivalent to Steam's Big Picture mode here, no controller-driven, 10-foot interface (or even an OpenEmu-specific pause menu) that can be used without ready access to a keyboard and mouse. This is especially annoying if you want to play on your television but only have a laptop—if you'd like to change settings or switch games, you'll need to get up to poke at your computer. Broadcasting the image to your television via AirPlay and an AppleTV is theoretically possible, but input lag will probably be intolerable for most titles.

You can take a screenshot with command-T, but there aren't any other screen recording tools you can use to record and upload videos or to replay them in the emulator later. Speedrunners may also object to the lack of built-in input recording and rewinding options.

OpenEmu brings all (or, at least, many) of your homebrew and backup ROMs together under one roof and makes organizing them and paging through them better-looking and easier than any other console emulator. There's something about a nicely sorted game library, complete with box art, that feels better than a soulless list of files, at least for gamers who take their video game shelves seriously. There's some low-hanging fruit to harvest, but, especially if the developers can make the software more TV-friendly as they add support for additional consoles, this looks like an emulator with a bright future ahead.

I've been using OpenEmu for a while now and I greatly appreciate the simplicity of the interface. The controller support is superb. I liked it so much, I even carved a pumpkin in homage to the project last year.

As a new Wii U owner who just paid a small 'upgrade' ransom to be allowed to play a handful of available games he already owns on the controller that is supposed to be the centerpiece of the system, this looks amazing. Hopefully this will exert the type of pressure on publishers that leads to stable, trustworthy stores like iTunes, Steam, and Goold Old Games.

Isn't this program just doing what MESS and a frontend has been doing for years? I don't get what's different.

MESS is about emulation of hardware. Most emulators seek to run the ROMs as the console would. It is a subtle but distinct difference. Also, MESS front-ends have nowhere near the level of polish and elegance of OpenEmu.

MESS is about emulation of hardware. Most emulators seek to run the ROMs as the console would. It is a subtle but distinct difference.

What is the 'subtle but distinct difference' you speak of? MESS aims to emulate hardware as accurately as possible. That's its mission statement. Isn't that the same as running the ROMs as the console would?

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Also, MESS front-ends have nowhere near the level of polish and elegance of OpenEmu.

I'm not a Mac person but this looks like a nice setup. I know that when I built my arcade cabinet setting up up all the various emulators with a front end was a major task. This looks like it would take a lot of the pain out of that.

Comparing Mess and its highly versatile engine with a Frontend is missing the point.

Its a Launcher for the emulators not an emulator itself.

Im sure you could add Mess to the list of emulators and have both , especially if the source is open and you have the skills.

I'm comparing MESS *and* a frontend with the above.

Anyway, arguing on the internet is like being in the Special Olympics. I'm outta here.

Guy, I do see your point something that everyone else seems to be missing. You're making the point that what this software has done aesthetics aside is no different than using Mess along with a fairly decent front-end without going into technicalities or the fact that this app is targeted towards Macs.

I agree both have similar goals in that front, and I appreciate MESS's approach of trying to keep everything under one house(frontend aside) rather than having to contend with updates of different emulators along with their feature and functionality differences.

This looks pretty good, enough for me to give Steam a short break and try it out on my Mac.

I don't necessarily use emulators that much anymore due to the subject being such a grey issue (not to mention that a few years ago, I managed to purchase the games that I used to run through ROMs legitimately via the Wii). The only reason I need a good emulator is to run Knuckles Chaotix, which I purchased from BuyRite (remember the BR scandal?) and never received, plus some Sonic fan games (Sonic Megamix, Sonic Axiom) that I would run through KEGA. This looks streamlined and worth a spin.

Nice article. Anyone know of a similar app for windows? I use multiple emulators (mostly nes, genesis, and snes) and would love a common front end for all of them.

Anyone? People mentioned MESS, but the frontends linked from there all seem to look like DOS applications from the early 90s. I've recently switched from a Mac to a PC for my gaming, and this is the one area where I feel like I've made a huge step back.

Nice article. Anyone know of a similar app for windows? I use multiple emulators (mostly nes, genesis, and snes) and would love a common front end for all of them.

Yes actually. Another project that even does the same thing but supporting multiple platforms is called RetroArch, they link to it on openemu's page but the link is to the old project site and not libretro.com But essentially libretro is an api that emulators can support if they want and have their emulator run on 360's, PS3, osx, ipod/iphone, android Heck if you have a fridge that runs android it will run on it.

What's been missing in the press coverage of this awesome new setup is that it's based off of Libretro, which is already in use on hacked PS3s with similarly nice UIs. They did an amazing job of the UI, and it looks like the core API is a bit different from libretro, not positive about that though. All the cores that OpenEmu has appear to be derived from the libretro ones though. It'd be great if someone would take the effort to build something similar for Windows and LInux. But it would be nice to see the coverage detail the existing much larger retroarch project.

Also, FWIW, there's an XBMC frontend for libretro called RetroPlayer under active development, which would make an amazing HTPC console emulation frontend.

I'll second the "this is just a pretty frontend", and not a particularly ground-breaking one.

The article is missing something very important: comparing this to existing products. A quick Google search for "mac mess frontend" reveals QMC2, and I'm sure there are others. What does OpenEmu do that the rest doesn't? I see no reference to any other frontend.

Nice article. Anyone know of a similar app for windows? I use multiple emulators (mostly nes, genesis, and snes) and would love a common front end for all of them.

When it comes to arcade/console front ends, nothing even comes close to HyperSpin (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com). Unlimited options on what can be setup etc. There is a somewhat steep learning curve but for basic emulation it's not too hard. There is a large community for it too. Check out the site and there are ton of tutorial videos on YouTube as well.

I personally can't stand emulation and love collecting but the front end is very sleek looking on this, not sleek enough to make me give up my original hardware and trinitron station but nice for those that don't mind the hiccups and visual irregularities of emulation.

I think skeumorphism actually makes sense given the type of software we're talking about. Going all out and making the app resemble an 80s or 90s living room would be pretty sweet (as an option, of course).

Nice article. Anyone know of a similar app for windows? I use multiple emulators (mostly nes, genesis, and snes) and would love a common front end for all of them.

I see HyperSpin mentioned above. It's a fantastic program, but also check out GameEx (http://www.gameex.com/). I liked the look of GameEx over HS (personal preference really, nothing wrong with HS). It may take days or weeks to configure all of the options to your liking (particularly with the registered version), but I have all of my emulators running along with ROMs and assets, it's very clean and usable, and the 10-foot interface works perfectly with an Xbox 360 controller.

I think skeumorphism actually makes sense given the type of software we're talking about. Going all out and making the app resemble an 80s or 90s living room would be pretty sweet (as an option, of course).

I wouldn't want to go that far with it, but I agree that the nice integration of real pictures of controllers is something that suits the application very well.

I just ran into OpenEmu a couple of days ago when 1.0 came out. It's nice and I agree, front-ends are the worst part of emulation gaming today.

I've also been building emulation systems for myself and others for a decade or so, with an emphasis on the living room. So far I've found the Ouya to be the best retro gaming system I've come up with so far. Everything is controller-focused, so no need to get up and mess with the computer, has very wide range of emulators available (up to the PS1, nothing newer at this point and with the existing hardware), and works very well. On top of that it's a pretty sweet media player and indie game machine.

I've had a ton of other solutions with a ton of other hardware (from cheap Windows machines to a spare Mac Mini I had to expensive systems to R.Pi to etc) but all have had some fatal flaw especially for living room gaming. For me, this one works best, and for relatively cheap. Just a thought for anyone looking for a "Big Picture Mode" in OpenEmu or other front-ends (although I wouldn't be surprised to see it in OpenEmu in the next year).

Of course, if you're building an emulation CABINET, Hyperspin is probably the premiere front-end. Has great multi-emu support, etc.

Thanks a bunch for this article. I wasn't aware about OpenEmu spent some time recently to get most of the Shining force games to run on Mavericks. It wasn't that hard, but not easy either, and it was a bit of a UI mess... Three different emulators, all with different ways to configure controllers, and so on.

am I crazy or is there no way to cancel a game scan? you can pause it in the gui, but that's all I see. quit/relaunch the application, and the scan continues.I accidentally told it to scan a 15 TB share on my NAS. oops/lol.edit: quit the app, then deleted ~/Library/Application Support/OpenEmu/Game Library/import_queue.db and that did it.